by Last week the New Mexico Attorney General’s office filed a breathtaking, 128-page anti-trust lawsuit in federal court in New Mexico on behalf of the state’s billion investment fund, the New Mexico State Investment Council. The Council manages a permanent endowment along with money for 23 state agencies.The lawsuit alleges, backed by striking evidence, that the following banks have engaged in a 16-year conspiracy of “bid rigging and price fixing” in the Credit Default Swap (CDS) market: Bank of America/Merrill Lynch; Barclays; BNP Paribas; Citigroup; Credit Suisse; Deutsche Bank; Goldman Sachs; JPMorgan Chase; Morgan Stanley; and RBS.The lawsuit also names a swaps trade association, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA), as a defendant, noting that a “majority of
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Last week the New Mexico Attorney General’s office filed a breathtaking, 128-page anti-trust lawsuit in federal court in New Mexico on behalf of the state’s $31 billion investment fund, the New Mexico State Investment Council. The Council manages a permanent endowment along with money for 23 state agencies.The lawsuit alleges, backed by striking evidence, that the following banks have engaged in a 16-year conspiracy of “bid rigging and price fixing” in the Credit Default Swap (CDS) market: Bank of America/Merrill Lynch; Barclays; BNP Paribas; Citigroup; Credit Suisse; Deutsche Bank; Goldman Sachs; JPMorgan Chase; Morgan Stanley; and RBS.
The lawsuit also names a swaps trade association, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA), as a defendant, noting that a “majority of ISDA’s board members” are employed by the bank defendants. The lawsuit characterizes ISDA as a “front organization.” Two other companies involved in the allegedly rigged Credit Default Swap protocol are also named: Creditex and Markit. The lawsuit draws attention to the fact that “Until mid-2014, Markit was majority-owned and controlled by a consortium of approximately 16 investment banks,” including each of the bank defendants (along with HSBC and UBS) who sat on its board of directors.…